Saturday, June 30, 2018

Thomas and Miller Thompson


--Paxton Record.  10 October 1878.

Thomas Thompson, oldest son of Mr. and Mrs. T. Thompson, died last Saturday of diphtheria.  This is the second son they have lost by that fatal disease within the last two weeks. . . .

Find A Grave lists Thomas Thompson died 6 October 1878.  Miller Thompson died 25 September 1878.  It is noted on FAG there are is no stone for either child, and they are the sons of Iver Thompson. 

Another daughter . . .


--Paxton Record.  3 October 1878.

Another daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rice Kennedy died last Saturday, Sept. 2?th.  This is indeed a severe blow to the already bowed down parents.

Sue Kennedy and Sister's Obit


--Paxton Record.  26 September 1878.


Another daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rice Kennedy died last Saturday, Sept. 2?th.  This is indeed a severe blow to the already bowed down parents.

--Paxton Record.  3 October 1878.

I searched Find A Grave Lyman Township Cemetery (and then all Ford County, Illinois) for any Kennedy burials in 1878.  None.

1878


-- Paxton Record.  29 August 1878.

The shafts of Cupid have once again entered the adamantine heart of one who boasted himself invulnerable, and he becomes a willing victim to the little archer.  F. G. Lohman, teacher of our public school, and Miss Florence B. McCann, were married at Paxton, on the 22d inst.  Thus one of the bravest and one of the fairest are fairly caught in the silken meshes which there is no escape.  "May health, happiness and prosperity, and a long line of prosperity," be their future . . .

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Roberts Moves

 
 
 
-Ford County Press.  Melvin, Illinois.  10 March 1911.

Saturday, June 23, 2018

15 August 1878

--Paxton Record.  15 August 1878.

NOTE:  Obit for Abraham Shafer.  Wedding for John F. Smith and Mary C. Barker.

13 June 1878


Chris. Anderson is painting his store.
We have a new store in town, Pfaat & Sch???, who sell for cash only.
T. M. Hubbard, for the last five months with Anderson & Campbell, is now clerking for J. B. Meserve.
The Newman House, which for the past year has been under the management of Mrs. Andrews, of Buckley, is again in the hands of the old landlord, Mr. Newman.

--Paxton Record.  13 June 1878.

Leda Foster


Leda DeEtta Foster was born in Kenosha County Wisconsin May 18, 1860, daughter of Eliab and Martha (Clark) Foster. She moved with her family to Ford County IL in 1865. She and her sister Martha remained single all their lives, and looked after their mother in her widowhood. They inherited the family home in Roberts. Leda taught school in her youth, and in later years made rugs and quilts and kept boarders. She died less than a month shy of her 90th birthday at the nursing home in Melvin IL.

--Photo from Ayesha H. Leroy.
--Comments from Find A Grave.

Ruedger Home



Home of Margaret Ruedger. Section 11. Lyman Township.  Plat map is from 1884. Very close to Beeset Grove.

"My grandmother, Della Ruedger Blome, said she was born in 1892 in Beeset Grove."
--Ayesha H. Leroy. 

"That’s my childhood home. My parents, Merle and Wilma Flessner, moved there in the early 1950s. The house was torn down around 1974 when a new house was built" 
--Peggy Bargman.

"And right above the Ruedger farm is “M.J. Foster” for Martha Jeanette Foster’s farm, originally owned by her husband, Eliab Foster, who died in 1872."
--Susan Kathleen Foster Nelson

--Photo and comments from Ayesha H. Leroy.  Roberts Illinois History Group (RIHG) Facebook. June 2018. 
--Response from Peggy Bargman also on the RIHG Facebook.  June 2018.
--Comments by Susan Kathleen Foster Nelson.  RIHG Facebook.  June 2018.

Foster Family Photo

This is a family group photo, and the names are on the back of the photograph. 
Sitting: Nettie Wallis, E. A. Haling, and Martha Foster. Standing: Bela Foster Tine Foster Arista Foster, Angeline Haling, Leda Foster, George Wallis.


--Photos and comments from Barbara Leroy. Roberts Illinois History Group Facbook.  June 2018.

Alice (Bingham) Foster

"My great grandmother, Alice Anna Bingham Foster.  She married Parley John Foster, son of Eliab & Martha Foster. Anna was born in Vermont & died in New Mexico. Parley was twice her age when they married in Roberts; she was 19 & he was 38!"


--My photo (I believe from the Zahn photo abum or the Kendrick's album).  Comments from Susan Kathleen Foster Nelson on Roberts Illinois History Group page.  June 2018.

Research:  I need to find where this photo came from.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Jacob Blesch


Jacob and Mary Gurrad Blesch had one son, Reynold, and lived across the tracks from John F Ruedger and his wife, Margaretha (nee Gurrad). After John Ruedger died of typhoid fever in 1880, and his wife of cancer in 1886, Jacob and Mary Blesch looked after their two youngest children, John and Lydia. And Reynold was good friends with Parley Foster, I believe. Here's Jacob's photo.

--Comments and photo from Barbara Leroy.

Foster Home


This was noted on the Roberts Illinois History Group Facebook page by Susan Kathleen Foster Nelson (June 2018):

"This is Martha Jeanette Clark Foster's home . . . eventually unmarried daughters, Leda and Martha Foster lived here.  These three are the women in the photo.  Several of Martha Foster's children continued to live in her home with her.  After my GGF's divorce, he lived with his mother, as did one of his older brothers.  Martha Jeanette Clark Foster died in 1908.  She gave birth to 13 children, but the last 4 died at birth or as a toddler.  Eliab was first married to Martha's older sister, Jane Rebecca Clark, and they had three children, whom Martha raised along with her own.  Leda died in 1950, & Martha died in 1934, and my GGF died in 1942.  I would imagine the home changed ownership around 1950."

Also posted to the same page from Alyesha H. Leroy (June 2018):

"That is the Martha Jeanette Clark Foster home, as my cousin Susan Kathleen Foster Nelson said.  That addition to the back held a kitchen with a coal/wood burning cook stove.  There was no running water, not even a pump, when my mother visited there in the 1920's. The other room held a loom, which my mother believed her aunts used to weave rugs.

I think this is the Gene and Mary Schuler home on North Street.  More research needed.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

More 4 April 1878

--Paxton Record.  4 April 1878.

Thawville Cheese Factory.

4 April 1878

--Paxton Record.  4 April 1878.

More from 28 March 1878


--Paxton Record.  28 March 1878.

"W. E. Thompson, of photographic notoriety" possible photography studio in Roberts??
In the April 4,1878, his name is given as Will C. Thompson.  Not sure which is correct.  Research:  Can I find any pics from his studio.  Moved to Council Grove, Kansas. 

28 March 1878

 
--Paxton Record.  28 March 1878.

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Eliab Foster & Family

--Contributed by Barbara Leroy

Eliab Foster was born in 1808 in Oneida County, New York, the second son of a large family.  His father, William Foster, was killed while felling a tree on their farm in Oswego County NY in 1831.  Some of Eliab's uncles helped form a company of people who purchased land in what is now Kenosha County WI in the early 1840s, and a whole group of people from upstate NY followed them to Kenosha, Eliab included.  He met and married Jane Rebecca Clark in 1845 in Kenosha County; she was born in Naples, NY in 1826, and both her parents died in 1835, leaving her and her siblings orphans.  She came west with an older brother and brought along her sister, Martha, who was living with her sister and brother-in-law in the 1850 census.  Jane died in Nov 1851; Martha married Eliab in August, 1852, and they remained in Kenosha County until after the Civil War.

I don't know why they moved to Illinois around 1865, renting land in Iroquois County for a year before buying their farm in Ford County the next year.  Frances, my great grandmother, was born in Ford County, IL in 1866.  The other four children born after her all died very young; an infant daughter not named, Albert Alonzo, Dora Bell, and Bell.  I think only Bell's tombstone was still around the last time I visited Lyman Township Cemetery. 


Of course, Eliab and Martha are there.  Eliab went out one day in 1872 to chop wood.  The axe slipped and cut him so badly that he bled to death before he could get home.  Martha, his widow, remained on the farm until about 1890, then moved to town, where Leda and Martha looked after her until she died of cancer on Christmas Day, 1908.


Of the grown Foster children (or their kids) who remained in Roberts, I know this:

Olive Foster married Samuel Kenward, a real estate agent, in 1886.  The family moved to Bradley, IL, and had seven children.  Olive died of fever in 1903.  Samuel couldn't cope, and farmed the children out to relatives.  One of her children was Nancy, who went to live with John and Patience Kenward, her paternal grandparents.  She married Otto Seng and lived on a farm near Roberts.  Her children were Lawrence and Della. 

Sela Foster worked for a hardware store before starting his own. My mother said that they had an "elevator", pulled by ropes, that took folks to the second story, where I think they stored items for the store.  Sela married Sarah Harriet Whorrall. They had five daughters.  One of them, Blanche, married Charles Wright and lived in Chicago for a time.  But the couple eventually moved to Roberts, where Charles helped run the hardware store. 

Bela led an interesting life; he was the thistle ranger--he inspected farmland and helped eradicate thistles.  He was a school teacher and principal (and wrote a poem "Will You Think Of Me", which he gave to his classes.  This person found the poem and gave copies of it to her classes at the end of term for several years.  He married Christina McKay, a Canadian, in 1903.  She was a very classy lady and my mother was scared she would make some faux pas when she visited!  But she loved her "Uncle Beel", as she called him--she'd run to him when she visited and he would scoop her up in his arms and give her a big kiss on the cheek, which tickled because of his mustache.   Bela later became a rural mail carrier and wrote those marvelous histories of the county.  They had no children. 

Leda was a school teacher, made rugs on a loom, and kept a boarding house.  Martha was a nurse, and spent long hours at the Roberts clinic.    One interesting side note: in 1912, a new doctor came to board with them--Fred Blome.  Leda fell and injured her arm, so she wrote her sister, Frances, in Michigan, to send her oldest daughter down to work for them.  Della Bell Ruedger came and she and the doctor fell in love!  Leda took the train with them up to Michigan, where they were married 13 Feb 1913.  They lived in central Illinois most of their lives, which was how their daughter, Frances Blome, was able to tell me so much about the Fosters in Roberts.

Comparing Photos


Two different perspectives of Green Street.  The three buildings on the furthest right side remain pretty much the same.  But the façade of the Chambers Store has changed.  So which photo is older?  The top photo (from the above two) was taken just after the fire in 1894.

Below Zoomed in on both.
The above photo is looking to the east, the north side of Green Street.
The above photo is looking to the west, the north side of Green Street.
Note an arch has been added to the Chambers store.  It appears the corbels maybe the same; a center one removed and an arch added.

Add below . . . a partial listing of businesses on the north side of Green Street dated 1908.

--Posted by Jean Fox to the Roberts Illinois History Group page.  September 2016.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Roberts Photo

While doing my Lyman Township in the Civil War research I logged into Ancestry.com to look for additional information. I found an email address for Barbarba Leroy on the site (a contributer to the Ruedger family), and I contacted her. Right away she responded with pictures, stories, etc. She has done much research on the Ruedger, Gurrad, Foster, and Clark family in the Roberts area. She sent me this photo of downtown Roberts. I have not seen this perspective in such an old photo. You can see the church steeples in the background, and I believe also a sign for possibly the Colteaux Restaurtant and Lunch Room. I am not sure what the building is at the far side of the photo near the large windmill. With all the men standing around (and it looks like one may have a sheriff's badge on his jacket), I wonder if this photo also was taken at the time of the fire in 1894 that destroyed the south side of Main/Green Street.  The original is photo #1 and those following are just enlargements/zooms of the original.
Isn't it a great photo? Thank you for sharing with us Barb.


Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Civil War Veterans

I just set up a research page of sorts where I am saving bits and pieces about the 21 civil war veterans that are buried in Lyman Township and St. Mary's Cemetery.  Click on this link to view the blog:

https://lymantownshipinthecivilwar.blogspot.com/


Roberts Rakings

--Paxton Record.  7 March 1878.